


last cigarettes are all you can get

by Giddygeek



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Episode Related, Episode: s04e09 The Serpent, M/M, Missing Scene, like three layers of dubious consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 16:12:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18781693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Giddygeek/pseuds/Giddygeek
Summary: This fic fills in a missing scene: a moment from The Serpent—where the monster blips in with Quentin, cigarette in his mouth and tragic look on his face—has stuck with me.~“Compromise,” Quentin said, reluctant. “There’s a third option—something other than playing with me or playing with other people. You can, um. Have you ever heard of solitaire?”





	last cigarettes are all you can get

**Author's Note:**

> So this is not my happiest story, but it fits in my personal alternative season 4: the dumbest bits get left on the cutting room floor, and some of the ouchiest bits live up to their full hurt/comfort potential.
> 
> The actual sexual component of this story is mostly--there's not a lot of physical contact. It's not really that explicit. But I warn for dub-con and bump up the rating for it because I'm personally sensitive to it.
> 
> To me, this story has three layers of consent issues. There's a sexual element to the relationship between Quentin and the Monster, but a) Quentin doesn't want it b) I'm not sure the monster understands it c) Eliot's body does stuff without Eliot's permission. The better angels on my one shoulder hate this; the angels on my other shoulder, the fallen angels, _l o v e_ it. See: my first story in this fandom, too. It's a thread I just can't ignore.
> 
> Anyway. If any of that will bother you, this is not the story for you, and I completely get that. Hit me back up with the next one! <3
> 
> Thanks to JanetCarter, MissPamela, and Mollyamory for beta reading!
> 
> Title is from Wilco's Jesus, Etc.
> 
> ~

“I’m _trying_ to get it out of your sight,” the monster said. He chucked another stone at the body of the poor psychic whose brain he had fried. “It just. Won’t. Sink.”

He turned to Quentin, head cocked, curious. “Is there something wrong with it?”

“Well,” Quentin said. He stopped, exhausted, and looked out over the dark ocean. The effort it took to explain—to speak—almost wasn’t worth it. But the monster might just bring up the other bodies to experiment on, so: “This is salt water. Human bodies tend to be buoyant anyway, but especially in salt water.”

The monster frowned thoughtfully. “So I should...take the salt out of the water.”

“No, no,” Quentin said. He could just see it: ships sinking around the world, ocean life wiped out in a day, all because the monster thought he was doing what Quentin wanted. “Leave the salt. Don’t change anything about the water, do you hear me? No.” 

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He said, “You just. You need more rocks. Bigger rocks. To weigh him down.”

“Oh.” The monster’s face cleared. “More rocks. Yes.” 

He disappeared. Quentin sat down for a moment. The bodies of the boat’s previous occupants were down the stairs. When he sat, he couldn’t see their bloody handprints on the door frame anymore. The ocean was calm and quiet, the moon and stars gleaming high above. The body of the psychic bobbed on the gentle waves.

The monster reappeared with—Christ, with _boulders_ , immediately upsetting the balance of the boat.

“I got them from a quarry!” he said brightly. “They’re very heavy—will they work?”

“Get them off the boat before it sinks,” Quentin snapped, holding onto a rope and scrambling his heels for purchase, to keep himself from sliding towards the boulders. They made the deck list down almost to the water. 

The monster looked confused for a moment, then his face relaxed as he sorted out what Quentin meant. With a casual, playful movement of his fingers, he tossed the heavy rocks onto the psychic’s body. 

The boulders landed like cannon balls—the poor dead guy didn’t have a chance. He sank out of sight, destined for a cold grave on the distant ocean floor.

The boat shuddered as the weight was removed as quickly as it had come. Quentin felt a flash of sea sickness: the deck rocked back and forth in wild arcs. He clung to the rope and closed his eyes. Maybe he should have let the boat sink underneath him.

“Interesting. I’m going to watch,” the monster said. Quentin opened his eyes in time to see him step off the boat and splash into the water. He sank down, disappearing in a fountain of bubbles. 

Quentin cursed. He scrambled to his feet and staggered to the side, leaning over the railing to search the dark water. Nothing: only the trailing bubbles.

“Get the fuck back up here!” he shouted. He reached over to bang a fist against the side of the boat, hoping the hollow thuds would travel down into the water. “Don’t you—don’t you dare, you’ll kill his body—“

“Hmph. I _told_ you I won’t kill this body.” The monster appeared behind Quentin. Quentin startled and flailed. He tried to turn but the monster was too close to him. Instead, Quentin’s back thumped against his strong, lean chest, covered in soggy clothing. The monster’s thin Winosaur t-shirt and cardigan held the chill and the smell of deep water. 

Wet hair dripped on the back of Quentin’s neck as the monster whispered in his ear: “Yet.”

Quentin clung to the railing. He forced his eyes to stay on the water, where the psychic’s body had sunk under the weight of the rocks—to stay focused on this evidence of what the monster was, what he could do with the snap of his fingers. It only _felt_ like Eliot, pressed against him in the dark, breathing with him, arms bracketing his. 

“Okay,” he said. Water trickled down his back and he shivered. “Okay, just—just keep in mind when you get a body cold and wet—a _living_ body—it will cease to live pretty fast if you’re not careful. That’s all. Okay?”

“Hmm.” The monster shifted behind him. “I suppose I did get the meat suit cold. And it _is_ wet.” Chilly fingers brushed the nape of Quentin’s neck, ruffling the hair there. 

The monster’s voice was quiet, curious, as dark and terrifying as the ocean. “It got _your_ body cold and wet. It has a feeling about that. Is it...sorry?” he wondered.

His hand closed over Quentin’s shoulder. His fingertips dug in. He forced Quentin’s body against his. The cold water oozing out of his long cardigan soaked the back of Quentin’s shirt, spreading moisture down to his hips and thighs. If he was sorry, the monster had a weird way of saying so.

The bubbles were mostly gone. The waves rocked the boat, gentle, and the moon lit a long road across the ocean, silver and dark. Peaceful. Quentin wondered what happened if you tried to walk that road, but there was—he still had to—he still had to take care of Eliot. Take care of Eliot first, and then— 

“A warming spell,” Quentin said. He swallowed, his throat clicking. “That’s all, I can teach it to you if you don’t know it already. Just warm up. Use the spell to dry our clothes and we’ll both be fine.“

He could _feel_ when the monster stopped listening. 

The monster’s grip on his shoulder tightened. He loomed closer, his head tilted down to Quentin’s. His breath ruffled Quentin’s hair. “The meat sack...knows this?“ He shifted again, coming more fully into contact with Quentin’s body. “It knows this, but what is it—what does it know, Quentin?”

“The warming spell,” Quentin said, growing frantic. “Here. It only takes a little magic, I can do it myself—” and he started to turn, but the monster’s hand was suddenly on his throat. 

It clenched high up under his chin, palm cupping his adam’s apple, fingers pressing into his jaw. The strength of the grip pulled Quentin upward a little, shifted his weight to his toes. Quentin’s hands scrambled for purchase on the railing. 

“The meat sack wants something,” the monster said in his ear, breath warm on his cheek. “It wants...this?” And—almost tentatively—he rubbed against Quentin. He was somehow half-hard under layers of cold, wet fabric. 

Quentin closed his eyes. He let himself hang heavy in the monster’s hand. _Please_ , he thought. _Please, not this_ , as the monster dragged him back. 

The monster pinned Quentin to his chest and rubbed against him. He murmured to himself, like he was figuring something out, reaching for a sense of Quentin’s feelings, Eliot’s memories, and—

“Ohh,” he said, sounding pleased with himself. “I understand now. The meat sack wants—it remembers—hmm.” He tilted his head to bite Quentin’s earlobe. Quentin shuddered, his hands coming up to pull at the monster’s hand on his throat. Long fingers tightened their grip. The monster raised his other hand to gently push Quentin’s away while he sing-songed quietly, “This body remembers a _fun game_.”

The part of Quentin’s mind that was always trying to calculate the odds shifted into high gear: there was a good chance that no matter how he responded, the monster would wipe him out. Resistance had been met with violence before: his arm still ached sometimes, although the broken bone had healed. Pleading with the monster accomplished almost nothing. Even giving in would be dangerous. Like an excited dog with a new squeak toy, the monster might dig in and throw Quentin around until he stopped making noises. 

All Quentin had were threats and distractions. 

“Put me down,” he rasped. He wasn’t getting enough purchase with his feet to prevent the monster from choking him, so he didn’t bother to keep his weight on his toes. He kicked back with one heel, catching the monster in the shin. 

The monster made a displeased noise but let him down. He loosened his grip on Quentin’s neck. Quentin squirmed around and dug his fingers into the wet wool of the monster’s cardigan, looking up into his eyes.

 _Eliot’s eyes_. 

Sometimes Quentin thought it was possible to see a flash of Eliot’s awareness, to catch glimpses of him inside himself, looking out. Never for as long as when Eliot had spoken to him at the park, but—sometimes.

Quentin thought he was there for a moment when their eyes met: Eliot straightened his shoulders, his neck, out of the monster’s slouch. He looked puzzled at his own hands on Quentin’s throat, at the moonlight on the water. His lips parted as if he was about to speak—and then he was gone, and the monster was back.

He ducked head and rubbed his cold nose against Quentin’s cheek.

“Is kissing fun, Quentin?” he asked. His hips pressed against Quentin’s: lightly, almost inquisitively, dick still hard. “I remember now that Eliot liked it. He knew a game you could play after kissing, where you took off your pants and got down—and he—he wanted to play it again.” 

He sighed happily and trailed his lips across Quentin’s cheek, pressing them to the corner of Quentin’s mouth, crooked and too heavy. The monster murmured against his skin, “Will you play with me?”

Quentin pulled back as much as he could. “That wasn’t a game. Not to me.” 

The familiar, yawning ache flared in his chest: sex with Eliot had often been fun, and playful, and sometimes involved elaborate plotlines and a character sheet, but it hadn’t been a _game_. It had ruined his relationship with Alice in one timeline and helped reveal the beauty of all life in another. It had haunted him every day after Eliot rejected him at Whitespire. It had _changed_ him. 

Maybe it had been a game to Eliot. Quentin wouldn’t have thought so, but how could he know? He could argue both sides of that conversation: _had_ argued them—over and over again—in the months since the key quest. 

Eliot had been so sure that their relationship wouldn’t work outside the mosaic, but it had made enough of an impression on him that he used that conversation as proof of life when he broke the monster’s grip on his mind. That had to mean something, right? 

But maybe all it meant was that Eliot had looked for a secret between them—something only they knew enough about to use as a code word—and had come up with the moment that had broken Quentin’s heart by _accident_. 

He could debate it with himself all day and get nowhere. All Quentin knew for sure was that he couldn’t let the monster treat that part of his life like a toy he could break and discard—no matter how much the monster looked like Eliot; no matter how tempting it was to ask if he knew what Eliot had felt, what Eliot had _meant_.

Quentin tried to push him away. Water dripped over the back of his hands as he squeezed the monster’s wet cardigan in his fists. “No. I won’t play that with you. And if you try playing it with me, I won’t ever speak to you again. Not a word. Do you understand me?”

“You barely speak to me now,” the monster complained. He didn’t move as Quentin shoved at him. Eliot had always countered resistance with flexibility—had been shocking and dangerous when he stood firm, like when he’d refused to let Quentin stay in Blackspire. 

The monster didn’t have that bend-not-break sensibility: he was all _break break break_.

He leaned into Quentin’s fists and said, “All you say is, ‘No, don’t do this. No, don’t do that. No, I won’t help you kill that man—even though he put onions on your pizza.’ Maybe it would be _nice_ if you stopped talking to me.”

His eyes changed, losing some dark sullenness and picking up a dangerous spark as he considered a new option. “Maybe _I_ should stop talking to _you_. _Someone_ will play this game with me.” 

The monster looked himself over, considering. Then he gave Quentin a sharp, sly smile. “Someone _fun_.”

Christ, Quentin was tired of navigating this nightmare: keep the monster just close enough to use him against himself in the fight to save Eliot. 

“Compromise,” Quentin said, reluctant. “There’s, uh. There’s a third option—something other than playing with me or playing with other people. You can, um. Have you ever heard of solitaire?”

The monster just looked at him. His face had gone blank and impatient. Quentin could see his nipples pebbled under that stupid Winosaur t-shirt. The white fabric had gone transparent in the moonlight, still wet and cold. 

Quentin rubbed a hand across his eyes and sighed. “Okay,” he said. He must have had the talk with Teddy, right? His memories of that other lifetime weren’t all crystal-clear—some of them had faded with time—but his father had talked to him, and he was sure he’d have talked to his son. If he thought of the monster as hitting _puberty_ he could—maybe—create some boundaries. Give him an outlet. Help him develop a sense of right and wrong, as much as that was possible.

“Okay, so. Human bodies sometimes have _feelings_. The kind that, uh.” He winced. “That your body is having right now. Where you want to do something with another person’s body. Like, rubbing up against them, and kissing them.”

“And the other things?” the monster asked, narrowing his eyes at Quentin. “The other things I want to do to you?”

“Those too,” Quentin said, but then flashed back to all the other things he’d seen the monster want to do: eat someone’s liver, or slice their throat. “Maybe not all of the other things,” he revised. “This particular—game—you have to ask people, every move you make, if they want to play. If they say no, that’s the end of the game. And they can say no whenever they feel like it.”

“That’s a boring game,” the monster said, scowling at him.

“Right,” Quentin said, relieved. “Exactly. Boring for you. It takes a lot of work, and you have to always be asking people to say yes, and you have to listen to them when they don’t, or you’re not playing right. _But_ there’s a single-player mode.” 

Even that had issues: would Eliot want the monster touching him that way? Did the monster really understand what he was doing? But if he was going to have some kind of _awakening_ , they needed to have a safe—safer—outlet.

The monster raised his eyebrows. “Single...player...also sounds boring.”

“No, you’ll like it.” Quentin pushed up his sleeves and bit his lip, thinking: how to get the monster started, then bow out? “Maybe you already have an idea how to play?”

The monster looked at him. In the moonlight—with his wet hair starting to dry in wild curls, his t-shirt thin and transparent, his wet cardigan dragging long and ragged so that he looked almost skeletally tall and lean—the monster was nothing like Eliot. 

But when he smiled, slow and coy, it was easy to feel a pang: a moment of wishing, desperately, for the circumstances to be different. 

“Show me,” the monster said. Maybe he was playing one of his games again, trying to draw Quentin in, but Quentin couldn’t risk it. 

“I’ll, uh. I’ll tell you,” Quentin said. He took a deep breath, held it in with his cheeks puffed, and tried to relax as he sighed it out. He had some memories—some vague idea of what would feel good to Eliot. He could walk the monster through that much without. Without being part of the game. Right? Maybe. Probably. 

Probably would have to be good enough.

“Okay,” he said, resolved. “Take your dick out of your pants. Do you want to dry off or warm up first, because—no, okay, hi.” 

It had been a while since he had seen Eliot naked—a lifetime since he had seen Eliot naked and _in his twenties_ —not that he was naked now. The monster was still wearing all his clothes but had pulled out Eliot’s dick—funny how Quentin could refer to the rest of his body as _the monster’s body_ , wearing an Eliot suit, but it was difficult to recontextualize this—whatever. It didn’t matter. In the end, there was still a naked dick hanging out in the moonlight, half-hard. 

Quentin felt a physical pull towards the monster: a moment of instinctive response, of his own body finding this familiar and desired. He quashed it, but felt like the hole in his chest had been dug another layer deep. Eliot’s rejection, his disappearance, and now this new pain. Even if—when—they got Eliot back, would Quentin heal? What would it take to heal from this?

Quentin was afraid it would take more than he would ever get.

“Hold it in your hand,” he said. “Maybe spit on your palm first. It, uh. It might feel more fun that way. A little slick.”

The monster made a face but spit in his palm. He did it daintily, like he had never spit before and found it vaguely distasteful. Then he wrapped his hand around himself, too loosely, and looked at Quentin, expectant.

Quentin winced. This would have been awkward if it _were_ a game—if it had been one of Eliot’s occasional role-play scenarios. Without Eliot in on the joke, it was almost excruciatingly embarrassing. 

And yet, Quentin couldn’t deny that something inside him stirred when he said, “Now, hold yourself tighter and move your hand like _this_ ,” and the monster, watching him closely, _did_ it. 

“Again,” he said. The monster jerked himself again, then narrowed his eyes speculatively and experimented with the angle.

“You got it?” Quentin asked, relieved; if he agreed, then Quentin could step out of sight, find a nice corner of the boat away from all the—the blood and the monster—and just contemplate the moon road while—

“I don’t think so,” the monster said with a sly smil. He looking up from under his dark lashes. “Tell me more,” and, fuck, caught between repulsion and compulsion, Quentin _did_.

Quentin told him how to vary the strokes, to run the palm of his hand over the head, to press his thumb, hard, against the spot near the root of Eliot’s dick that Quentin remembered made him wild. 

He watched the monster get caught up in the movement, the feeling: his hips started to stutter and roll, flush rising over his chest and up to his cheekbones, the other hand touching his nipples when Quentin remembered to tell him—to tell him what Eliot had liked. 

“Come,” Quentin told him. He was ashamed to find himself excited by the command. He wondered what Eliot would have thought. At the same time, he hoped that the monster would listen. That it would like it enough to stick to masturbating, and not draw anyone else into this new game. 

The monster looked at him. His long, slender fingers squeezed himself tight. Quentin looked back at him, into his eyes, _Eliot’s_ eyes—certain he saw his friend there—and said, quietly, to Eliot, wherever he was, whether he was listening or not: “Please.”

The monster gasped. He arched his back and neck into a long, tight line. His eyes fluttered shut. He came: jerked semen onto his t-shirt and his hand. His dark pants hung open, framing dark pubic hair and his long, beautiful dick, and Quentin felt a stir of desire. 

The memory of Eliot was so strong—the _need_ for him was so strong. Quentin thought again: what would it take to heal from this separation, this time with the monster which wore his friend so easily? 

And he realized, with breathtaking conviction, that he might not.

“I liked that,” the monster said after he had caught his own breath. He opened his eyes and smiled at Quentin. “I liked the part where you were talking to me. That was fun. More fun than anything else you’ve done in a while.” 

“Yeah. Well. I’ve got a lot of research to do—for _you_ —I’ve been busy,” Quentin said. The monster raised an eyebrow at him and licked his hand, humming as he considered the taste of his come. 

Quentin squeezed the railing in his hands, tight enough to hurt, and shook his head. “I’m not going to have a lot of time to be fun. You can do this without me, though.”

“But will I?” the monster asked him, which was an answer in and of itself. He licked his hand again. Quentin dropped his head and closed his eyes.

The monster threw himself next to Quentin, leaning against the rail. He draped his arm over Quentin’s neck and squeezed Quentin close. 

“I know what to do after sex,” he said, triumphant. “I’ve watched _so_ many of your movies—” and suddenly he had a lit cigarette in his other hand. Christ, what movies had he been _watching_?

The monster took a puff, held it in while humming cheerfully, and let the smoke out. He smacked his lips. “Wait,” he said, in the tone of someone surprised by their own rudeness. “I should have asked. Do you want a taste?”

Quentin, standing as far away from him as he could while still being trapped under his arm, shook his head. He wasn’t in the mood for a smoke. He didn’t exactly feel a lot of _afterglow_.

The monster nudged Quentin’s cheek—and then his lips—with his hand, wet in the moonlight. Quentin recoiled: oh, he hadn’t meant the cigarette; of course he hadn’t meant the cigarette. 

“Like the ice cream,” the monster murmured, cigarette caught between his lips. He watched avidly as Quentin, knowing he had already pushed his luck—and, maybe, just a little bit unwilling to resist—bent his head and licked the monster’s hand.

“You’re such a good friend,” the monster said, turning to wrap himself more fully around Quentin. “Now, come on. Let’s dry off—” and they suddenly were: dry, but clothes stiff with salt water, smelling like the sea, and sex— “and go see what your other friends are up to.” 

He popped the cigarette into Quentin’s mouth, smiled down into Quentin’s eyes, and—

They interrupted Penny and Julia having a moment when they blipped back into the apartment. Quentin knew that body language: the way Penny looked down at her, the way she looked up at him, the way they leaned in, caught just before a kiss. Romantic. 

His stomach turned.

But the monster didn’t care what he had interrupted. It was probably safer for everyone if he didn’t pay a lot of attention to them.

“That was fun,” he told Julia and Penny as they broke away from each other. He laughed, and his voice went strange and dark. “It took a lot of rocks to sink the body.” 

Quentin sat on the window seat, misery pouring off him—missing Eliot, hating the monster, hating himself—while the monster stroked his hair and neck, then bounced cheerfully away. “Ready to get started, Percy?”

Penny shot Julia a look, but followed the monster out. 

Quentin watched them go. He stood and braced his arm on the mantle of the fireplace, watching the flames dance. He stubbed the cigarette out, then spun it between his fingers. The monster’s idea of afterglow was filthy, a little manic—and probably deadly—but at least he hadn’t made Quentin suffer through a lot of pillow talk. 

Small blessings, he thought. He dropped his head with a sigh.

Julia came up soundlessly behind him and took his other hand between hers. “Are you okay?” she asked, soft and sympathetic, and then her nose crinkled. “What’s that smell? Where did you guys—wait—”

“That’s just the smell of the ocean,” he said. He shook his head when she looked at him, her eyes wide. “Leave it, Jules. Eliot—and Penny—first. We can worry about me later.”

She ran her thumb across his cheekbone. “Don’t leave worrying about yourself until too late,” she warned him. Her voice, her eyes, her hands: everything about her was so quiet and strong. Quentin swayed toward her. He wanted to put his head down on her shoulders, to close his eyes—to rest for just a minute.

But Penny and the monster were already bickering in the kitchen. Julia drew back, her attention caught by their raised voices.

“I won’t,” Quentin lied, and she tossed an absent smile at him over her shoulder as she hurried to intervene. 

He looked down at the cigarette in his hand. The monster didn’t even smoke what Eliot had smoked, he thought. He was so irrationally annoyed by that detail, that tiny, _insignificant_ thing that the monster had gotten wrong, it almost made him feel strong again. He disappeared the cigarette up his sleeve, then rolled it out and flicked it into the fireplace. 

_Eliot first_. He’d get Eliot back: the real Eliot, with his waistcoats, and his chin held up high, and his cigarettes, and his bone-deep awareness of what would feel good and how to do it, and—

And then Quentin would find out how many rocks it took to sink a monster.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr: giddygeek.tumblr.com


End file.
